eminent and the most illustrious personages of the court, the Church, and the nobility. The insignia of the order were a collar composed of golden fleurs-de-lis, surmounted with enamelled flames, forming the initials of the king and his wife Louise of Lorraine, with a cross bearing a silver dove, emblem of the Holy Ghost. At the meetings of their order, the knights were clad in costly round-caped mantles of blue velvet spangled with fleurs-de-lis in gold (Fig. 157). These meetings, which at first were held in the Church of the Augustines at Paris, where the solemn receptions of the new members took place, were afterwards transferred to the Louvre, where they were celebrated with extraordinary pomp. It is true that the statutes enjoined on each lay knight the duty of taking arms for his sovereign whenever the latter was preparing to go to war for the defence of his dominions, or in the interest of his crown; but they were never scrupulously obeyed on this point, and the Order of the Holy Ghost, while preserving its military and religious character on all ceremonial occasions, never played any other part than one of display and heraldic pretension. The sovereigns, however, at all times showed themselves extremely jealous of the privilege of appointing its knights, and the latter for more than three centuries composed the actual guard of honour of the royal house of France. [Illustration: Fig. 159.--St. George, the patron of warriors, vanquishing the Dragon.--From the Tomb of Cardinal Georges d’Amboise, at Rouen (Sixteenth Century).] LITURGY AND CEREMONIES. Prayer.--Liturgy of St. James, of St. Basil, and of St. John-Chrysostom.--Apostolical Constitutions.--The Sacrifice of the Mass.--Administration of Baptism.--Canonical Penances.--Plan and Arrangement of Churches.--Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.--The Ceremony of Ordination.--Church Bells.--The Tocsin.--The Poetry of Gothic Churches.--Breviary and Missal of Pius V.--Ceremonies used at the Seven Sacraments.--Excommunication.--The Bull _In Cœnâ Domini_.--Processions and Mystery Plays at the Easter Solemnities.--Instrument of Peace.--Consecrated Bread.--The Pyx.--The Dove.